


The Second Chance

by vega_voices



Series: Patience [6]
Category: In Plain Sight
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>There were times Mary’s deep understanding of human emotion and the need to process information shone through and he was grateful for the patience he never knew she had until she first kissed him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Second Chance

_**Fic - In Plain Sight (The Second Chance)**_  
 **Title:** The Second Chance  
 **Author:** [](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/profile)[**vegawriters**](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** In Plain Sight  
 **Pairing:** Mary/Marshall (mention of Mary/Raphael and Marshall/Michaela)  
 **Rating:** PG-15ish  
 **A/N:** Consider this my version of the iPod drabble challenge. Part of the [“Patience”](http://community.livejournal.com/vega_voices/tag/fic:%20patience%20universe) universe.  
 **Disclaimer:** Sadly, I don’t own them. If I did … well … I wouldn’t need to write fic, would I? TPTB at USA and Co. collect the money, I just play near the sandbox.

 **Summary:** _There were times Mary’s deep understanding of human emotion and the need to process information shone through and he was grateful for the patience he never knew she had until she first kissed him._

 _I don't know how to love him.  
What to do, how to move him.  
I've been changed, yes really changed.  
In these past few days, when I've seen myself,  
I seem like someone else.  
From: I Don’t Know How To Love Him (Jesus Christ Superstar)_

In addition to his love of classical and his strange obsession with West African Drums, Marshall liked chick music. Notably, Tori Amos and Ani Difranco. Having long since abandoned his own CD collection for his iTunes subscription, he’d turned his passion for artwork toward the vinyl collections his brothers had once broken for sport. Mary teased him about his love of “girly music” even while flipping through his vinyl collection and admiring the artwork that had gone by the wayside with the popularity of downloading and digital media. Together they listened to Johnny Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter, and he knew that every time their dinners were peppered with playback from Little Earthquakes or Not a Pretty Girl, she listened more than she let on.

But following cultural norms had never been Mary Shannon’s style. So she mocked angry-white-girl music even while slowly adding albums to her collection. When she started dating Raphael, he noticed more and more Latin music on her iPod and once, on a Saturday night, he spied them on a dance floor in a Salsa club.

Who knew that Mary Shannon could dance?

From the moment he’d met her, he’d known there was something deeper lingering under her angry exterior. Mary was fresh and different and read Nietzsche where he read Jung and read crime novels where he read true-crime histories. She listened to Johnny Cash and he listened to Patsy Kline and they came together in perfect harmony. Best friends. And now lovers.

He just hoped he could handle the bumps and skips that came along with this change he’d spent been praying for.

Out in the other room, Mary quit her unconscious humming as the Tori Amos song ended.

Marshall walked back into the living room, beers in hand. Mary leaned against the entertainment center, her long legs encased in his Superman pj pants, breasts straining against her black tank top. With her hair up in a high pony tail and her head nodding along to the Chris Ledoux song that came up on his iPod’s rotation, he suddenly imagined her how she’d never been as a teenager. When most girls were sitting around in slumber parties, sneaking their mother’s liquor and giggling over boys, Mary had been taking care of her mother and her sister and plotting to run away. Marriage had been her escape. Marriage that granted emancipation from her mother’s lack of care. At sixteen she’d been on her own, figuring out how to get out of high school without dropping out and trying to get into college and scrapping to make ends meet so she didn’t have to go home again. At sixteen he’d been mooning over an exchange student from Iceland.

There were moments when everything Mary Shannon was came into clear, perfect view. He was damned lucky she trusted him.

“Hey …” Craning his neck to see the record she was scrutinizing, he trailed off when he noticed the rust colored cover, encased in plastic. He’d never listened to that particular recording; never broken the plastic seal and held the vinyl in his hands.

“You never talk about her …” was all Mary said. She held up the record for him to see the dedication scribbled in silver sharpee over the golden “Jesus Christ Superstar” inlay.

 _For my reluctant one. There are times I feel like Mary Magdalene, reaching for Jesus, knowing love is more powerful than any mortal connection. Listen and love, Marshall. I adore you and our lives together and someday, these songs will sing our children to sleep. With all my heart, Kay._

He’d found the record in the closet when cleaning out her things. It had been his Christmas present, wrapped in blood red paper.

Slowly, Marshall knelt, balancing on the balls of his feet. Mary handed the record over and he was glad for her thoughtful silence. There were times Mary’s deep understanding of human emotion and the need to process information shone through and he was grateful for the patience he never knew she had until she first kissed him. “It hurts, Mary. All these years later, it still hurts.” Gently, he took the record from her hands, staring at the flowing handwriting that used to leave him reminders to pick up the dry cleaning and notes saying she’d been called to a scene but there was rice in the cooker. For as hard as it was for Mary to overcome her fears of commitment and abandonment, he was terrified of opening his heart again. He didn’t know if he could handle seeing her get ripped from him.

He’d almost lost her once. Mary had spent six weeks in the hospital and she’d coded three times before stabilizing. Now, with Mary in his bed at night, he realized he was as scared as she could ever be. When he shook away his glee that she’d allowed him as close as he always dreamed, the truth was that he was as scared of losing her as she was that he’d leave her.

Oh what a mess they made together.

“We laughed together,” he heard himself say, but he didn’t recognize his voice. Marshall settled on the floor, Mary’s toes touching his knees, and he ran his hand over the album again. In the background, the music rotation switched and A3’s Too Sick to Pray washed over them. “We laughed all the time. She loved to come home, chewing on some piece of inane trivia, and we’d debate it all night long. She’d bring it up to make some joke and we’d just laugh about it. Sometimes she’d make something up to see if I caught her. It became a game.”

“I can see how you’d fit together.”

Mary’s comment was soft, but he could feel the hurt in her voice. She’d never loved anyone as much as he loved Michaela and it was a world she couldn’t share with him. She could miss her father and hate him for abandoning her and love him for the myth he was in her mind, but she had never dared herself to really go where he had gone. Raphael had a shot, once, and Marshall knew he’d been the right guy at the wrong moment for Mary. He set the record aside and lifted Mary’s foot into his hands, massaging gently. “She died a long time ago, Mary.”

“But you’ve never really gotten over it.”

Marshall paused, choosing his words carefully. They were both treading carefully, but the last thing he needed to do was actually compare her to Michaela. They were nothing alike anyway but it would only increase her insecurities and they were both on shaky ground right now. So he set her foot back down and instead took her hands and pulled her into his lap. She kissed him, softly, and he held her tightly. “No, I haven’t,” he finally answered. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t …” he paused. If he said the words to her, she’d run faster than Speedy Gonzales out and away and he’d catch up to her somewhere in Seattle or Alaska or Moscow. “It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here with you, Mary. I mean that.”

“I know,” she stroked his cheek. “And despite my consistent attempts to only use you for your body …”

He chuckled and ran his thumb across her nipple. “I know.”

“Do you think we’re moving too fast?”

He recognized the frightened tone in her voice and leaned up to nuzzle her neck. “Probably. But we’ve crossed the line, Mary. And we both want to be here. So it’s one day at a time.”

“And what if tomorrow I freak out and you need space?”

“Then you freak out tomorrow and we see what happens.” He sighed softly. “I’ve waited too long to find some kind of joy again, Mary.”

She shifted, nervously, and he knew that flowery declarations meant less than actual action. So he kissed her, softly, and let her slide off his lap. “She loved musicals,” he said, holding up the record again before moving to return it to its place on the shelf. “And she could sing. I asked her once why she didn’t go into musical theater.”

“What was her response?”

“That if she wanted to work in a cutthroat world, she’d have stayed with the police force.”

He cracked a grin and Mary laughed softly. “Fair enough.”

The songs switched and Mary Chapin Carpenter’s It Don’t Bring You piped through the speakers. He smiled and stood, taking Mary’s hand in his own. “Dance with me,” he whispered, wrapping a strong arm around her waist. She melted against him, her head resting on his chest, and he held her hand between them.

“I’m sorry she died,” Mary’s voice was soft. “You deserve better …”

He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry she died too. But I’m not sorry you’re in my life, Mary. I mean that.” Her grip tightened and he reciprocated. She wasn’t going to die on him. He had her in his arms, recovered and whole. The fallout from the gunshot only a still fading scar and her occasional need to sleep on a heating pad when her muscles around the wound tightened up. He’d made it to the hospital in time to kiss her. He’d been able to hold her hand while she recovered. In a world that didn’t grant second chances, God had taken pity on him.

The song changed and he still held on tight to his second chance in life. “Whatever pace you need, Mary. We’ll figure it out.”

“I know …” her voice was tight but she still held him as tightly as he held her.

Marshall lowered his lips to hers again, kissing away the nervousness and the guilt and the worry. What a pair, he thought again as her hand wrapped around his neck and he slowly walked them back to the couch; him terrified to lose her and her terrified to be found. Neither of them were leading in this dance – and that was what made it work, he realized. She tumbled onto the cushions and he laughed, following her. His shirt landed somewhere behind them and he tugged the Superman pjs off her long legs.

She laughed and he smiled as she drew him back to her lips for another kiss. They were moving too fast and he knew a crash and burn was just around the next dangerous curve. But in a flash of storybook hope, he knew they’d be okay as long as they didn’t let go of each other and if he’d learned anything in seven years of partnership, it was that Mary held tighter to him than he did to her.

After all, he’d almost been willing to walk away. She never let go.

He’d been ready to move on to Petersen security and take with him his Mambo lessons and his Jungian archetypes. He’d understood he would only love her from afar; she’d never get over the hurt. She’d been the one to remind him why he stayed, and it wasn’t simply to protect her from the world or the world from her.

They protected each other. It was what partners did.

Some crazy piece of Japanese pop music came up next in the playlist and Mary laughed and pulled away. Rolling her eyes at him, she wiggled away, heading into his bedroom – after stopping to turn off the annoying sounds coming through the speakers.

Marshall stood up to follow. He paused, picking up the record, and sliding it back into its home on the shelf. With a smile, he turned, clicked off the living room lights, and made his way to Mary’s side.


End file.
